[zeromq-dev] 0MQ vs TCP sockets - survey

[Steve Atkins]

On Oct 29, 2010, at 10:47 AM, Oliver Smith wrote:

> Pieter Hintjens said the following on 10/26/2010 3:56 PM:
>> Hi y'All,
>> 
>> As a kind of a survey / test to see if you're awake, I'd like to
>> solicit your views, as 0MQ users and contributors, about the most
>> significant differences between 0MQ and traditional TCP sockets.  I.e.
>> how would you convince your boss that it was worth using 0MQ rather
>> than just coding your app the old fashioned way...?
>> 
>> Feel free to +1 / 'this' other people's comments so we know what
>> tickles you the most.  I'll collect the results in a comparison
>> document on the wiki.
> Not wanting to sound negative, but would it perhaps be worth fielding 
> the counter question: why not?
> 
> (For me, the main thing keeping me from pushing ZeroMQ on our project is 
> the encryption issue, and a lack of time to investigate it fully myself 
> right now)

That it's not something I can use "outside the firewall" is the main
reason I'm thinking about whether I can use it, rather than just
using it. (The context is a client-server setup with a complex server
and a small number of relative simple clients that could be outside
the firewall).

There are three issues related to that:

  1. Multiplexing multiple streams over a single TCP socket

  2. Robustness, so that port scanners and service checkers feeding
      junk into a TCP socket won't break the associated 0MQ socket

  3. Encryption / authentication

Cheers,
  Steve